Google's assistant can tweak brightness, contrast, picture mode, EQ, and volume on select TCL Google TVs in the US, with a system update required and the remote still in charge.
Google TV's Gemini assistant can now change your TV's picture and audio settings by voice, but only if you own one of a few TCL models in the US and have installed a recent system update. Owners of the QM9K, X11L, QM9L, QM8L, and RM9L can ask Gemini to tweak brightness, contrast, picture mode, EQ, and volume by saying the wake word or holding the microphone button on the remote. Google's example, reported in Engadget's recap of the announcement: saying "the screen is too dark" gets the assistant to brighten the image, and "set picture mode to Sport" swaps modes.
The feature was first shown during a Google TV news dump at CES at the start of 2026, and Engadget's Matt Tate published the recap on June 12, 2026, a day before the World Cup kicks off in the US, which helps explain why "Sport" mode is the kind of example Google keeps reaching for in the demo.
What the voice control can actually touch is broad for a TV assistant: brightness, contrast, picture mode, volume, and EQ. What it cannot do is anything that was not already in the settings menu, and it is still up to you whether to trust its choices. Google itself flags that picture and sound modes vary across devices, which is a real reason a careful viewer might keep hands-on control. There is also an explicit escape hatch. You can ask Gemini to just open the right settings page and take over from there, or you can keep using the remote the way you always have. The new control is layered on top of the manual path, not a replacement for it.
The honest read is that this is a real but small offloading of menu drudgery, not a remote-killer. The interesting questions to watch are whether Google can get the same voice control onto other Google TV brands and outside the US, and whether the assistant's picture and EQ choices will be good enough that people stop reaching for the settings menu in the first place.